Category: if review

IF Comp 2016: Sigil Reader (Field)

When I woke, it was high noon, and the air was dead.

Sigil Reader (Field) is a fantasy exploration parser game made in Quixe. The PC is a woman called Priyanka Ramasamy who deals with sigils of protection, speed, silence, and more; she works in an institution whose role is to capture and log specimens and monsters. What exactly this involves is hidden at first.

Thrown into the events of the game, Priyanka has tattered memories of the catastrophe that has occurred, and the Station is deserted. It quickly becomes clear that while the Station is not working as it should, neither is Priyanka’s mind.

Something made me look down, and there was my ID card clipped to my belt. Had it always been there?

Although the descriptions of the station offices fall on the spartan side, it’s in the small details where the writing shines. Snippets about Priyanka’s colleagues and brief but intense sensory interactions are some of my favourite segments, revealing low-key but characterful information about Priyanka’s colleagues’ lives, and what Priyanka herself remembers and values.

The game moves forward steadily, with minor puzzles that serve to enhance the atmosphere rather than challenging the player for any great length of time. As it progresses, it becomes clearer that Priyanka is in an altered state of being, but Sigil Reader (Field) is not about enforcing the player’s will on the world: it’s more about savouring the story, the world, and Priyanka’s experience.

The snippets of information we get whet the appetite for more. As Christopher Huang notes: “It feels like there’s a lot of detail in this setup that’s just a little bit beyond the frame.”

Though Sigil Reader (Field) is successful as is, I wonder where it would have gone with a longer deadline. More than that, though, I’d love to see more in this setting … and more non-Euro/US settings generally, more Malay SFF in the IF world, and more Singlish. The dreamy atmosphere and lightly-creeping dread of this game means I’m looking forward to playing more of verityvirtue’s work in Ectocomp 2017.

Ectocomp 2017: La Petite Mort

Ectocomp, the annual horror-focused interactive fiction contest, has arrived! La Petite Mort is the speed-writing section of Ectocomp, in which games are created in 3 hours or under. Here are some thoughts on my current three favourites.

 

Bloody Raoul – Ian Cowsbell (Inform 7)

An interactive grotesque about a “knife punk”, one of a subculture of criminals existing with little identity but for the knives they carry. The setting is rich, with weird and intriguing details about deities, bodies, and weapons, painting the picture of a sinister fantasy city full of desperate individuals running and fighting for the sake of it. All of which is to say: this is my jam.

Although some of Bloody Raoul‘s implementation is sparse, the atmosphere is suitably sinister and imaginative that I didn’t much mind. There are a number of ways to die, but the game is brief enough that this is less of a barrier to enjoyment and more of a curiosity. For the PC, it’s all part of their nasty, brutish and short everyday life.

 

little – Chandler Groover (Twine)

A tiny yarn about a creepy girl, needles, bodies, and an even creepier narrator. Chandler Groover is excellent at creating grotesque fairytales and disconcerting narrative voices, and this piece is no exception. Its barebones narration and interface works well to create the atmosphere, allowing the player to fill in the gaps – inevitably with more horrible images than could be depicted. One section reminded me of the party garden sequence from howling dogs, though rather than decadence overload, it gives the piece an added inexorable chill.

 

make build –deity – Josh Giesbrecht (Twine)

A series of iterations of an AI deity being built. Rather than violence and creepy imagery, this game concerns itself more with existential dread.

You awaken, with eyes everywhere, ears that hear all.

It is time for you to make the world right.

I’m hesitant to say much more about it – I think it works best going in without much prior knowledge – but the look of the game is pleasingly console-screen-style, and along with the ambient soundscape, the whole thing provokes a sense of heavy, dreamlike melancholy.